Tatsuo Hoshino

Tatsuo Hoshino 星野 龍男 is a Japanese historian, linguist and literary translator who studied at Sorbonne University, Paris, and lived several years in Thailand and Laos, during which period he often visited Cambodia.

Studying under the direction of Claude Jacques, he developed a particular interest for mainland Southeast Asia Ancient and Middle Age History, with an emphasis on Chinese influences and relations.

Reporting on the symposium ​‘History of the Khmer Land’ held at Paris Sorbonne University in Nov. 1993 at the initiative of Prof. Claude Jacques, the anonymous witness (and participant to the symposium) writing for Phnom Penh Post wrote (5 Nov. 1993): ​“Mr Tatsuo Hoshino took the floor and, using the same Chinese sources [previously quoted], argued that texts should be read literally: Funan, says the Chinese text, lies 300 li west of Lin yi (Northern Champa, on the Vietnamese coast). Mr Hoshino then concluded that Funan, usually believed to be in the Mekong Delta, should be located somewhere between the Chao Phraya River and the Korat Plateau, for instance at Si Thep. As later sources are more precise in locating Funan in the South of the Peninsula, he described the kingdom as a ​“migratory country”(…) [But as a consequence of a reasonable statement by Yolaine Escande], Funan, in the mind of the participants, quietly returned to its traditional location, somewhere in Southern Cambodia or Western Cochinchina. Mr Hoshino had not won the day.”

[Also attending were Angkorian studies luminaries such as Prof. Yoshiaki Ishizawa of Sophia University, Tokyo, François Bizot, Elizabeth Moore, Georges Condominas, Michael Vickery, Lan Sunnary, Albert Le Bonheur, Surawadee Ittaratana, Bruno Bruguier, Yolaine Escande, René Dumont, Marielle Santoni, Marie Martin, Sharon Alvares, Henri Locard, Albert Le Bonheur, Michel Felrus, Tatsuro Yamamoto, Pierre Lamant, Gérard Diffloth, Maurice Eisenbruch, Christian Bauer, Nobuo Endo, Jacques Népote, Richard Engelhardt. Read Phnom Penh Post piece.]

His major published work was Pour une histoire médiévale du Moyen Mékong (Editions Duang Kamol et CNRS, Bangkok, 1986. ISBN 9789742104115).

Also from Tatsuo Hoshino’s publications:

• Lao for Beginners: An Introduction to the Language Through the Written Word (with Marcus Russell, Tuttle Publishing, Bangkok, 1981
• Contribution to Breaking New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to Twentieth Centuries, Mayoury Ngaosrivathana and Kennon Breazeale (eds.), Bangkok, 2002.
• Translation (TH to JP): Kham Phiphaksa (The judgment), by Chat Kopjitti, lmura Cultural Enterprise, Tokyo, 1987.
• ‘The Kingdom of Red Earth (Chitu Guo) in Cambodia and Vietnam from the Sixth to the Eighth Centuries’, JSS 84 – 2, 1996.